Comments by knitandpurl

"But the Great Report won't be composed in a study; it will come out of the jungle, breaking cover like some colourful, fantastic beast, a species never seen before, a brand-new genus, flashing, sparkling—fulgurating—high above the tree-line, there for all to see."Satin Island by Tom McCarthy, p 62 of the Knopf hardcover edition

"So the little houses is all forsook. They have big garths round them, and pasture for grass-letting—sheep and that—and grand hayfields."- "Bell and Harry" by Jane Gardam, in The Hollow Land, p 11 of the Europa Editions paperback

"I hadn't fought ten seconds before I felt this softness in him, realized all that quality of modern upper-class England that never goes to the quick, that hedges about rules and those petty points of honour that are the ultimate comminution of honour, that claims credit for things demonstrably half done."Tono-Bungay by H.G. Wells, p 31 of the Everyman paperback

"Entering, you first noticed the traditional tokonoma to the immediate right, while a closet took up the rest of that side of the wall."The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide, translated by Eric Selland, p 21 of the New Directions paperback edition

"The creative man will not, then, be he who has deduced something new ex nihilo, btu he who has identified it, by intuition, by trial and error, by chance — or by that infinite patience which for Flaubert was a sign of genius — amid the gangue that enclosed it and concealed it from our eyes." - Umberto Eco, in his foreword to Tristano by Nanni Balestrini

"O laborers, idle shepherds, come, a truthI suspect once you've shiftedthe blame to your flutes come undone,I ween. No one knows how muchwe've done to ourselves, nor I to each other,cracked, before we were born."- "The Queen's Apron" by John Ashbery, in Quick Question

"The traveller had taken off his cloak and looked very slender and elegant in his pinstripe suit. He was smoking a papirosa and giving instructions at the same time."Pietr the Latvian by Georges Simenon, translated by David Bellos, p 11 of the Penguin paperback edition

"The dreech weather had drawn in a few more than usual at this time of day but I saw no close acquaintance and I had a mind to drink a quiet pot of tea and glance at the early edition of the evening paper, content in my own company."The Mist in the Mirror by Susan Hill, p 4 of the Vintage paperback edition

"And where once the crowds were mere pent peacocks,Twiddling half chatoyances, shimmers in the dark,Now only the dancers remain.""Aubade: Vol. 2: The Underground Sessions" in "The Ground" by Rowan Ricardo Phillips

"The white rat stepped cautiously into the room, nostrils flaring. Satisfied of its immediate safety, the rat darted up Teo's desk and sat atop her paperwork. It wore black velvet barding blazoned with a silver spiderweb; a leather scroll case the size of a cigarette hung around its neck."Two Serpents Rise by Max Gladstone, p 65

"It is full of people working magic—warlocks, witches, thaumaturges, sorcerers, fakirs, conjurors, hexers, magicians, mages, shamans, diviners, and many more—from the lowest Certified witch right up o the most powerful of enchanters."The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume 1, by Diana Wynne Jones

"Dallington's story had satisfied both Lenox and Jenkins as to the motivation of the brother and the sister, a long cathectic hatred of Queen Victoria, bred into the bone by their ancestors and their father, and flourishing, perhaps, without the soft guidance of a mother."An Old Betrayal by Charles Finch, p 266

"Sophronia raised up her Depraved Lens of Crispy Magnification, a present on her fifteenth birthday from Dimity's brother, Pillover. It was essentially a high-powered monocle on a stick, but useful enough to keep at all times hanging from a chatelaine at her waist."Curtsies & Conspiracies by Gail Carriger, p 8

"In September I planted a line of spruce saplings along the west portico, against the better judgment of Rodgers—and now they have all but one of them died, which I view as final and irrefragable evidence that I have entered my senescence."A Death in the Small Hours by Charles Finch, pp 274-275

"Back in her apartment she pins Amsterdam to the wall above her bed, beneath another old postcard: four brightly painted totem poles and a few muskeg spruce, leaning over a marshy inlet."Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith, p 13

"Then came the strange events that I wrote off at the time as a kind of self-undermining parapraxis. First I forgot to pack the book; then I forgot to collect my bag from the carousel in the airport."The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas, p 277

"After I've had some soup, I go and get in the bath with two of the homoeopathy books: Kent's Lectures on the Materia Medica and a rather strange-looking volume called Literary Portraits of the Polychrests."The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas, p 117

"Elizabeth, heavily pregnant and desperate, was there waiting while her husband and sons tried to find work in the area, having been turned away from the Tavistock stannary." PopCo by Scarlett Thomas, p 172 of the Harcourt paperback edition

"Beyond the vision of her pumping knees on some desperate errand, and the bloodied dress above them, and playing in the yellow dust under the macrocarpa hedge, and a young women turning cartwheels on the lawn—whom she assumes to be Rita—she has only the scantiest memories of her very early life."Kehua! by Fay Weldon, p 130

"If you go up to Coromandel these days, up to the subtropical North, where the pohutakawa trees line the rocky coast, and the dolphins sport in a warm sea, and in the deep dark kauri forests where the tui birds break the silence and the bellbirds chime, you could well believe that the spirit of the taniwha has been put to sleep."Kehua! by Fay Weldon, p 120

"I remember what Aroha said about the kehua, the spirits of the homeless dead, and how they like to inhabit animals and birds: the screech of the morepork bird in the velvety Maori night is a case in point."Kehua! by Fay Weldon, p 40

At the start of Kehua! by Fay Weldon, there's this:"May the Maori amongst you excuse this fictional forayinto your world, for which, believe me,I have the greatest respect, having as a childin the Coromandel encountered both taniwha and kehua."

At the start of Kehua! by Fay Weldon, there's this: "May the Maori amongst you excuse this fictional forayinto your world, for which, believe me,I have the greatest respect, having as a childin the Coromandel encountered both taniwha and kehua."

"And then came the mud. In it sloshed, through the broken windows. Thick mud, watery mud, rocky mud, mud with beveled-glass shards, mud with window muntins, mud with grass, mud with barbecue utensils, mud with a mosaic birdbath."Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, p 76

"Turning up the deep astrachan collar of his long coat, the stranger swept out of the shop, with the air, as Miss Fritten afterwards described it, of a Satrap proroguing a Sanhedrin. Whether such a pleasant function ever fell to a Satrap's lot she was not quite certain, but the simile faithfully conveyed her meaning to a large circle of acquaintances.""Quail Seed" by Saki, in The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories (p 139 of the NYRB edition)

The poultry followed her in interested fashion, and swine grunted interrogations at her from behind the bars of their sties, but barnyard and rickyard, orchard and stables and dairy, gave no reward to her search."The Cobweb" by Saki, p 109 of The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories (NYRB paperback)

"And yet, for all that it stood so well in the centre of human bustle, its long, latticed window, with the wide window-seat, built into an embrasure beyond the huge fireplace, looked out on a wild spreading view of hill and heather and wooded combe.""The Cobweb" by Saki, p 104 of The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories (NYRB paperback)

"As for Cassandra, who was expected to improvise her own prophecies, she appeared to be as incapable of taking flying leaps into futurity as of executing more than a severely plantigrade walk across the stage.""The Peace Offering" by Saki, p 75 of The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories (NYRB paperback)

"Still, despite the tight shackles and endless drudgery, despite the difficulty in dealing with all this, how should I say, journalistic prose--for that's what it is: lifeless, banausic drivel that rushes like a torrent and lacks all color and rhythm, except that it seems to come in waves, but you could at least pace yourselves by contending with these waves one at a time, consider only the number of strokes to be made between each strike of the clock, instead of dwelling on the calendar."The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni, translated by Darren Koolman, p 156

"So they gathered around a horrible toadstool covered in blemishes and eschars, for these made it look a fitting exemplar, or perhaps it was more a leprous garden gnome, who carried his personal tragedy with him everywhere he went, and because of his dual nationality bumped into us more often than not."The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni, translated by Darren Koolman, p 134

"How is it possible that within a belletrist culture like that one, there was so much admiration for the works of Zi--with their soppy sentimentalism and bumpkin sophistication, their bad grammar and archaic anacoluthia, and all those gigantic leaps away from the slightly credible to the wholly fabulous?"The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni, translated by Darren Koolman, p 129

"She opened with a recitation--interspersed with oscitations and eructations--of a monologue by the teenage actress in The Seagull."The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni, translated by Darren Koolman, p 115

"His voice was certainly the strangest I've heard from a creature of his kind-- at once surd and resonant, clipped and lyrical, with euphonious vowels broken by brusquely stressed consonants that reminded me a little of Careclough's Scottish brogue."The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni, translated by Darren Koolman, p 114

"d) Once the cult of St. Mawr was born, it committed itself to what was called "the small instauration" and to "the little idiom.""The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni, translated by Darren Koolman, p 106

"Many years later, once we saw through his mask, that symbol of his claudication, we summoned the image of Von Aschenbach, as interpreted by Dirk Bogarde in the Visconti film (14, reference to Gathorne-Hardy, anecdote in the book about English public schools)."The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni, translated by Darren Koolman, p 77

"Since then, having succeeded in restoring them to that previous state in which their livelihoods depended on a meager spring (one that delivers on a monthly basis), he eases a vellication of remorse with the thought that they would be amply remunerated with freedom of time and leisure, although he knows the leisure of redundancy cannot truly be enjoyed."The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni, translated by Darren Koolman, p 55

"Critics and friends had already rebuked him for his honeyed volubility, and also that "nothing to say" which the terricolous Hardy suspected lay behind his ponderous, Tyrian diction."The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni, translated by Darren Koolman, p 52

"When he saw them again, on that morning in August after returning from a visit to the city, he found them quite as submissive and conceited as ever; and he, once again trapped in their especial variety of confessional antechamber (in which they oft be labored him with successions of halting effusions), sought escape by firing off--or more properly, stammering--a bêtise on the "perfumed scent" of his butler's arrhythmic respiration, which was indeed perceptible to him in more than one--and to more than one--sense." The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni, translated by Darren Koolman, p 47

"Nicasio sits with his barracan jacket slightly open, his hand reaching--in plenipotentiary gesture--for his wallet ("ample as a library," according to Dos) so he can pay the bill."The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni, translated by Darren Koolman, p 7

Having now read The No Variations several times in the course of translating and editing, I was continually amused by its author's mock affectations, moved by his corybantic delight in language, and, despite the difficulty, I believe it has that quality proper to all fine literature, which Tertullian first noted of scripture: semper habet aliquid relegentibus, however frequently we read it, we shall always meet with something new." Darren Koolman, in his Translator's Preface to The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni

The literal meaning of Peripecias del no is "Peripeties of No," but while the title works great in Spanish, in English, it is inkhorn. Darren Koolman's Translator's Preface to The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni

"Set in an elementary school in Argentina in the early seventies, it is in fact a pasquinade on the bourgeois pretentions and puerile rivalries among Buenos Aires writers and intellectuals at that time."Darren Koolman, in his Translator's Preface to The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni, p V of the Dalkey Archive Press paperback

"Video games have turned everyone under the age of 20 into experts on military history and tactics; 12-year-olds on school buses argue about the right way to deploy onagers and cataphracts while outflanking a Roman triplex acies formation.""It's All Geek to Me" by Neal Stephenson, pp 60-61 of Some Remarks

"Of course the Carbonite stilettos pierced it as if it were cork board, but this spoiled his aim long enough for me to whip my wakizashi out from between my shoulder blades and swing at his head.""Slashdot Interview" by Neal Stephenson, p 28 of Some Remarks

"She sent me out to check ten sycamores at the backs of some houses in Romsey to see whether there was a root problem when it came to the sewers (the sycamores were fine, though a leylandii clump was too close to the houses by far) and by the time I got back to work she'd sent me an email saying I'd been assigned next week off, on half-pay—in October, which is one of our busiest times."Artful by Ali Smith, p 57

"What is this picture but a fragment?Is it linen—papyrus—who can say? All those stains and fents and stretched bits, butshe was a character, even a beauty, you can see thatfrom the set of her head and the rakish snoodher tight black curls are fighting to escape from."

"You laugh out loud and tell me what Angela Carter said about that 'fubsy beast': she thought he looked more like a pajama case than a tiger. I go away and look up the word fubsy. I've never heard it before."Artful by Ali Smith, p 16

"He hangs his distinctive coat on a peg and says, "I have found a wonderful subject for you: Stesichorus's palinode ..." Yes, I can still see Mr. Bailly very clearly."Climates by André Maurois, translated by Adriana Hunter, p 11 of the Other Press paperback edition

"Set free from carking care and amply provided for, we were able to give most of our time and energy to our real profession – which, of course, is Sapping – and so moving northward and then westward we presently arrived, after a leisurely but eventful journey, much of it very comfortably underground, at the eastern border of Bombardy."The Wind on the Moon by Eric Linklater, p 335 of the New York Review of Books edition

"Set free from carking care and amply provided for, we were able to give most of our time and energy to our real profession – which, of course, is Sapping – and so moving northward and then westward we presently arrived, after a leisurely but eventful journey, much of it very comfortably underground, at the eastern border of Bombardy."The Wind on the Moon by Eric Linklater, p 335 of the New York Review of Books edition

"The Judge, as it happened, was playing clock-golf with his Cook, and his two maids were watching, so there was some delay before the visitors were admitted."The Wind on the Moon by Eric Linklater, p 205 of the New York Review of Books hardcover

"Are you quite sure, Mrs. Wellaby, that you haven't committed even the least little tiny tort in the last few days? Because I am ready, now as ever, to defend you against any accusation whatsoever, no matter whether it be barratry or illicit diamond-buying, forgery or coining, breach of promise to marry, or armed resistance to capture."The Wind on the Moon by Eric Linklater, p 199 of the New York Review of Books hardcover

"'Because you're a stiff-necked, rascally, rebellious, unruly rout of predestined skilly-swillers,' he would yell."The Wind on the Moon by Eric Linklater, p 185 of the New York Review of Books hardcover

"For tea they had scones and pancakes, crumpets and pikelets, muffins and cream buns, plum cake and seed cake and cream cake and chocolate cake, and often some bread and butter as well."The Wind on the Moon by Eric Linklater, p 23 of the New York Review of Books hardcover

"It was a pleasant room with a window facing south, a satinwood bed, a satinwood dressing-table, and a satinwood writing desk at which Miss Serendip used to sit and write letters to her seven sisters"The Wind on the Moon by Eric Linklater, p 19 of the New York Review of Books hardcover

"These rackets are strange: they look like "old rackets" (like violas to violins, crumhorns to bassoons); one of them has an extremely large wooden frame and the racket itself (the stringed part) is a tiny round (not oval) hole that is obviously stringless."La Boutique Obscure: 124 Dreams by Georges Perec, translated by Daniel Levin Becker

"On the second floor of the Opera atelier, Anna Maria sat at a dressing table with a small mirror, took a round etui from her pocket, extracted the reddened cotton wad, spit on it, and blotted her lips."The Stockholm Octavo by Karen Engelmann, p 162

"Miss Hagman had the perfect life: a luxurious apartment, more than adequate means, and she was free to be a coryphée, to socialize with all manner of people—from royalty to artists."The Stockholm Octavo by Karen Engelmann, p 157

"Then ask him if he wouldn't happen to have some glasswort, and if not than percebes, or goose barnacles, those little crustaceans like the ones you find in Galicia and the Madrilenian markets."My Beautiful Bus by Jacques Jouet, translated by Eric Lamb, p 45

"The remnants of a lacy filibeg clung to the twisted circlets of the Crimson crown, its garnets glinting dully, and the Punctilious Trousers bore unpleasant stains.""The Return of the Fire Witch" by Elizabeth Hand, p 239 of Errantry: Strange Stories

"She gestured at the waiting cabriolets and winged caravans, parked alongside the bridled destriers and sleeping gorgosaurs that lined the long curving drive.""The Return of the Fire Witch" by Elizabeth Hand, p 236 of Errantry: Strange Stories

""The Crimson Court has a legendary kitchen. Too long have you languished here among your toadstools and toxic chanterells, Saloona Morn! At great danger to myself, I have secured you an invitation so that you may sample the Paeolinas' nettlefish froth and their fine baked viands, also a cellar known throughout the Metarin Mountains for vintages as rare as they are temulent. Still you remain skeptical of my motivations."""The Return of the Fire Witch" by Elizabeth Hand, p 225 of Errantry: Strange Stories

""An ustulating spell directed at his paramour's bathing chamber. The squireen has been reduced to ash. The optimate's need to retain his affection has therefore diminished."""The Return of the Fire Witch" by Elizabeth Hand, p 223 of Errantry: Strange Stories

""The Queen was not aware of it either," replied Paytim. "Her brother poisoned her and seized control of the Crimson Messuage. He has impertinently invited me to attend his coronoation as Paeolina the Twenty-Ninth."""The Return of the Fire Witch" by Elizabeth Hand, p 221 of Errantry: Strange Stories

"When the dishes were cleared and the last of the locust jelly spooned from a shared bowl, Paytim poured two jiggers of amber whiskey. She removed a pair of red-hot pokers from the kitchen athanor, plunged one into each jigger, then dropped the spent pokers into the sink.""The Return of the Fire Witch" by Elizabeth Hand, p 216 of Errantry: Strange Stories

"Insensibility, melancholia, hebetude; ordinary mental tumult and more elaborate physical vexations (boils, a variety of thrip that caused the skin of an unfaithful lover to erupt in a spectacular rash, the color of violet mallows)—Saloona Morn cultivated these in her parterre in the shadow of Cobalt Mountain.""Return of the Fire Witch" by Elizabeth Hand, p 209 of Errantry: Strange Stories

"His former colleagues were now living eidolons of youth, beauty, health, joy, desire flitting past him in the studio, lovely and remote as figures from a medieval allegory."- "The Far Shore" by Elizabeth Hand, p 130 of Errantry: Strange Stories

"Today, I blame myself for my irenicism: I should never have allowed the issue of Les Temps modernes on the Arab–Israeli conflict to open with Rodinson's article, 'Israel, a Colonial Reality?', for I do not believe that this is, or has ever been, the case: in my films and in my writings, I have striven tirelessly to reveal the complex reality of Israel."The Patagonian Hare by Claude Lanzmann, translated by Frank Wynne, p 399-400 of the Farrar, Straus and Giroux hardcover edition

"To get from Beijing to Pyongyang, one went either by rail or by air: the first entailed a forty-eight-hour journey with a stop of indeterminate length at the Sino-Korean border before travelling north at a snail's pace through the septentrional regions of North Korea since there had recently been a catastrophic explosion that had destroyed a railway station and two trains, resulting in countless victims."The Patagonian Hare by Claude Lanzmann, translated by Frank Wynne, p 315 of the Farrar, Straus and Giroux hardcover edition

"I didn't feel qualified, but I accepted and we began to work, proceeding by a Socratic, maieutic method – which is something I'm rather good at."The Patagonian Hare by Claude Lanzmann, p 191 of the Farrar, Straus and Giroux hardcover edition

"It was over Duelo a garrotazos that I had apagogically envisaged rolling the opening credits for my film Tsahal, about the Israeli army and the wars it was compelled to fight."The Patagonian Hare by Claude Lanzmann, translated by Frank Wynne, p 31 of the Farrar, Straus and Giroux hardcover edition

"Thus all they had to select from was tea, bread and sweet butter, porridge, ham and broiled mushrooms, rabbit pie, fricandeau of eggs, mayonnaise of prawns, and spiced beef." Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger, p 121

"Instead he listens, just in case Tom gets tripped up in the briar patch of plesiosynchronous protocol arcana, whence only Randy can drag him out."Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, p 406 of the Avon Books paperback edition

"Lord Woadmire is not related to the original line of Qwghlm, the Moore family (Anglicized from the Qwghlmian clan name Mnyhrrgh) which had been terminated in 1888 by a spectacularly improbable combination of schistosomiasis, suicide, long-festering Crimean war wounds, ball lightning, flawed cannon, falls from horses, improperly canned oysters, and rogue waves."Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, p 255 of the Avon Books paperback edition

"Propped up against the stonework next to the building's entrance is a gaffer dressed in an antique variant of the Home Guard uniform, involving knickerbockers."Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, p 253 of the Avon Books paperback edition

"As a result, the authorities of his country, the United States of America, have made him swear a mickle oath of secrecy, and keep supplying him with new uniforms of various services and ranks, and now have sent him to London."Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, p 146 of the Avon Books paperback edition

I didn't know the military meaning of this, as in:"The Marines charge the wastebaskets as if they were Nip pillboxes, and Lieutenant Ethridge seems mollified." Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, p 189 of the Avon Books paperback edition

"Soon they are standing before the fort's entrance, which is flanked by carvings of a pair of guards cut into the foamy volcanic tuff: halberd-brandishing Spaniards in blousy pants and conquistador helmets."Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, p 121 of the Avon Books paperback edition

"The United States part is, however, a safe bet, because every time he arrives at a curb, he either comes close to being run over by shooting-brake or he falters in his stride; diverts his train of thought onto a siding, much to the disturbance of its passengers and crew; and throws some large part of his mental calculation circuitry into the job of trying to reflect his surroundings through a large mirror. They drive on the left side of the street here."Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, pp 143-144 of the Avon Books paperback edition

"Farther south, the mountains are swidden-scarred—the soil beneath is bright red and so these parts look like fresh lacerations."Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, p 32 of the Avon Books paperback edition

"The speed and power of their growth is alarming, the forms they adopt as bizarre and varied as those of deep-sea organisms, and all of them, he supposes, are as dangerous to an airplane as punji stakes to a barefoot pedestrian."Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, p 30 of the Avon Books paperback edition

""Yes! Russell and Whitehead. It's like this: when mathematicians began fooling around with things like the square root of negative one, and quaternions, then they were no longer dealing with things that you could translate into sticks and bottlecaps. And yet they were still getting sound results."Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, p 18 of the Avon Books paperback edition

"For each stop—each timbre, or type of sound, that the organ could make (viz. blockflöte, trumpet, piccolo)—there was a separate row of pipes, arranged in a line from long to short."Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, p 8 of the Avon Books paperback edition

"But when a hornet got into the house and swung across the ceiling in a broad Lissajous, droning almost inaudibly, he cried in pain at the noise."Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, p 7 of the Avon paperback edition

"With only a few days to listen to the recordings, make notes, digest files from Time correspondents, read morgue clippings, and skim through several books, I was soon sprawled on the floor at home, surrounded by drifts of undifferentiated paper, and near tears in a catatonic swivet."- "Structure" by John McPhee, p 46 of the January 14, 2013 issue of the New Yorker

I'd never heard this as a verb, I don't think! As in:"Maureen emerged from behind the counter in her short black dress and frilly apron, and Shirley corpsed into her coffee."The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling, p 351

"It was all very confusing, and she continued to enjoy Easter eggs and decorating the Christmas tree, and found the books that Parminder pressed upon her children, explaining the lives of the gurus and the tenets of Khalsa, extremely difficult to read."The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling, p 301

""And what about you?" Simon roared at his wife, who was still frozen beside the computer, her eyes wide behind her glasses, her hand clamped like a yashmak over her mouth."The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling, p 283

"He carves horses and he paints a whole group on their points of hips, the throatlatches, on the tails, and so forth."- "One of the Great Drawbacks" by Diane Williams, in Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty (p 75)

"Lawrence Lessig, the whilom Special Master in the Justice Department's antitrust suit against Microsoft, complained that he had installed Internet Explorer on his computer, and in so doing, lost all of his bookmarks--his personal list of signposts that he used to navigate through the maze of the Internet."- "In the Beginning was the Command Line" by Neal Stephenson

"As if the spectres with which he paid for his passage to England, the soucouyants with which he revenged his uncle and family, all those bloodthirsty ghosts of his narrative have come alive in this city."The Thing about Thugs by Tabish Khair, p 191

"By now Amir has become used to the overbearing smells of London houses, especially around the kitchen: the odours, he feels, are stronger and more basic — burnt meat, boiled vegetables — than in respectable houses in his village, which are open to the cleansing air, purified by agarbattis."The Thing about Thugs by Tabish Khair, p 105

"Little good it did him though, this facing of a new future, the diligence with which he, in his youth, worked as a munshi before the death of his father called him back to the land, and the way in which he set himself to learn the customs and language of the Firangs."The Thing about Thugs by Tabish Khair, pp 25-26

"I had always admired Hamid Bhai's ability to guess where the cut kite would alight, just as I admired his capacity to hold his breath for so long during our games of kabbadi." The Thing about Thugs by Tabish Khair, p 24

"Sign language has its own syntax patterns, dialects and accents (American Southerners are known for "blurry" signing), and even usage experts, who teach native signers to use the language with concinnity.""Little Strangers" by Nathan Heller, p 89 of the November 19, 2012 issue of the New Yorker

"From his command post in the doorway of the Great Hall, Mister Pouncey pondered lists of secretaries and seal-keepers, council clerks and sergeants-at-arms. Was the Clerk of Petty Bag senior to a gentleman groom? he wondered. How important was the Keeper of the Hanaper, or the Chafe Wax?"John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk, p 214

"Beyond it lay overgrown beds and plants John had never set eyes on before: tall resinous fronds, prickly shrubs, long grey-green leaves hot to the tongue. Nestling among them he found the root whose scent drifted among the trees like a ghost, sweet and tarry. He knelt and pressed it to his nose.' That was called silphium.' His mother stood behind him. 'It grew in Saturnus's first garden.'"John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk, p 88

"John and his mother swished through carpets of vetches and fescues or pushed their way through the bushes, splashing through springs that broke through the turf and flowed through the grass in secret cascades."John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk, p 42

"The Canavans—they had for decades and centuries brought to the Ox elements that were by turn complicated and simple: occult nous and racy semen.""Ox Mountain Death Song" by Kevin Barry, in the October 29 & November 5, 2012 issue of the New Yorker, p 106

"Unsurprisingly, the audiences got longer and more ragged, with a growing number of her loving subjects going away regretting that they had not performed well and feeling, too, that the monarch had somehow bowled them a googly."The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, p 41 of the FSG hardcover edition

"He took the books up to the Queen's floor and, having been told to make himself as scarce as possible, when the duke came by hid behind a boulle cabinet."The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, p 16 of the FSG hardcover edition

The "a person of a keen, irritable temper" definition of this one is new to me. As in (re: Cecil Beaton):"'No, of course not. You'd be too young. He always used to be round here, snapping away. And a bit of a tartar. Stand here, stand there. Snap, snap. And there's a book about him now?"The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, p 7 of the FSG hardcover edition

"My work required careful research (as patient as Gutenberg taking his time making an ink that was neither too fluid nor not fluid enough) to find a discrete way to starch the lips of these slits. I used kaolin."Savage by Jacques Jouet, translated by Amber Shields, p 58 of the Dalkey Archive Press paperback edition

"She who knew neither past nor future, who had neither a tomorrow nor memories, had been obliged without warning to come here, to follow this grand deviation of the arrow of time—the most beautiful fleuron of occidental decadence."- Savage by Jacques Jouet, translated by Amber Shields, p 36 of the Dalkey Archive paperback edition

""Exactly," says Paloma triumphantly, "there is not enough regulation. Too many rail workers, not enough plumbers. Personally, I would prefer the kolkhoz.""The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson, p 281 of the Europa Editions paperback

"At the moment he is enduring Jacinthe Rosen's pithiatic prattling. She brings to mind a hen at the foot of a mountain of grain."The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson, p 133 of the Europa Editions paperback

"Thus we use up a considerable amount of our energy in intimidation and seduction, and these two strategies alone ensure the quest for territory, hierarchy and sex that gives life to our conatus."The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson, p 97 of the Europa Editions paperback

"Had I but the leisure to bite into the standard meter, I would slap myself noisily on the thighs while reading, and such delightful chapters as "Uncovering the final sense of science by becoming immersed in science qua noematic phenomenon" or "The problems constituting the transcendental ego" might even cause me to die of laughter, a blow straight to the heart as I sit slumped in my plush armchair, with plum juice or thin driblets of chocolate oozing from the corners of my mouth..."The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson, p 58 of the Europa Editions paperback

"As the noise of the helicopter's engine faded out on the roof above them, Riggs and Macready bent down and inspected the crude catamaran hidden behind a screen of bocage under the balcony."The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard, p 73 of the 50th anniversary edition

"Descending to three hundred feet above the water, they began to rake up and down the distal five-mile length of the main channel."The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard, p 72 of the 50th anniversary edition

"She noticed Riggs peering over his shoulder at the bar. 'What's the matter, Colonel? Looking for your punka-wallah? I'm not going to get you a drink, if that's what you're after. I think you men only come up here to booze.'"The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard, p 39 of the 50th anniversary edition

"Kerans shrugged, smiling at her amiably. 'I missed you.''Good boy. I thought perhaps that the gauleiter here had been trying to frighten you with his horror stories.'"The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard, p 37 of the 50th anniversary edition

"A specially commissioned report, commending 'the alluvial nature of the soil', listed the valley's crops 'of all kinds from the rarest to the coarsest qualities. Tobacco, the fig, the vine, the olive, the poppy, the cotton plant and mulberry tree are all indigenous products, whilst maize, barley, beans, flax, hemp and a variety of pulse and oleaginous seeds are raised in large quantities. Valonia, yellow-berries, wool, goats' hair, dyestuffs, drugs, skins, honey, wax and likewise abound.' The only hindrance was the primitive condition of the region's Ottoman infrastructure; by revolutionising the pre-industrial carriage of the valley's largely perishable produce, the railway company's backers meant to make a killing."Meander: East to West, Indirectly, Along a Turkish River by Jeremy Seal, p 270 of the Bloomsbury USA hardcover edition

"The village was empty. The flank of a sleeping dog heaved in the shade of a blue water bowser."Meander: From East to West, Indirectly, Along a Turkish River by Jeremy Seal, p 164 of the Bloomsbury USA hardcover edition

"I was curious about the watermills. The locals spoke of these mills as they might have referred to old mine workings or to the quicksands of tidal flats, to ice-covered ponds or the craters of rumbling volcanoes; I sensed it might pay this visiting canoeist to understand the local view if only because watermills meant no more to me than innocuous echoes of a pre-industrial past, a stock feature of picturesque period landscapes, high wheels turning harmlessly within the barred confines of their leats."Meander: From East to West, Indirectly, Along a Turkish River by Jeremy Seal, p 135 of the Bloomsbury USA hardcover edition

"By the time she returned with my breakfast — a tight-waisted glass of black tea, bread. crumbly white cheese, ship-lapped slices of tomato and cucumber, honey, and a boiled egg — and with more parsley for her husband, I was deep in the lead stories."Meander: East to West, Indirectly, Along a Turkish River by Jeremy Seal, p 21 of the Bloomsbury USA hardcover edition

"Dr. Tulp will soon be herein his black hat, prosectorialinstruments in hand"- from "A Waltz Dream" by W.G. Sebald, translated by Iain Galbraith, in Across the Land and the Water - p 97 of the Random House hardcover

"When the monster didn'tshow the marramwas permitted to reoccupythe fortified strip"- from "Holkham Gap" by W.G. Sebald, translated by Iain Galbraith, in Across the Land and the Water - p 68 of the Random House hardcover

"Mr Thwaite often attended the Sports Days, and Maitland came, too, dressed in brown tussore and a picture hat and carrying a reticule."Crusoe's Daughter by Jane Gardam, p 233 of the Europa Editions paperback

"'Now just go through to the dairy,' said Paul Treece's mother, 'and on the stone you'll see pork sausages. We'll fry them for the chicken on the fire. The bread sauce is at the bottom of the oven and there'll be room. The plum pudding's well away. There's room for another pan. It's a fine pow-sowdy. I'se not my usual self this year. Most-times I'se brisker. Maybe it's soon to be bothering with Christmas, but Paul wouldn't have wanted us overcome.'"Crusoe's Daughter by Jane Gardam, p 178 of the Europa Editions paperback

"And yet, as though to punish me now for calquing my own images over these sidewalks long ago, Via Clelia was giving them all back—but not a thing more."Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere by André Aciman, p 30 of the FSG hardcover

"The wishfilm we leave on our walks glistens on the city's hard surfaces like the luminous imprint of fish scales left on a butcher's block hours after the fish was caught, cut, and cooked—outside of time. It still glistens, still pulsates, reaching out to strangers, calling out to them, sometimes long after we're gone. The remanence of our presence, our lingering afterimage on this city—the best of us."Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere by André Aciman, p 155 of the FSG hardcover

"Biffy was a man of principle. He refused, on principle, to sell a huge tricolored pifferaro bonnet decorated with a cascade of clove pinks, black currants, and cut jet beads to Mrs. Colindrikal-Bumbcruncher for her daughter."Timeless by Gail Carriger, p 18

"He spoke in a hushed voice. "I traced Madame Lefoux to the dahabiya docks. A peculiar sort of place. Lost the scent there. I'm afraid she may have boarded a ship. ...""Timeless by Gail Carriger, p 278

"The ox was sleek, black, muscular; when it plodded into the spotlight, under the guidance of a wrangler, the stage crew and other rehearsing performers shifted tensely, as if each motion might mark the start of a faena."- "Listen and Learn" by Nathan Heller, in The New Yorker, July 9 & 16, 2012, p 69

"Where, we wonder, are the people of Nashville? That's one thing we like about our cities, we agree: there are always people about. They're usually drunk, of course. Drunk and lairy. But that is a good sign."Dogma by Lars Iyer, p 20